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Carlos let out a wet gasp and threw up water. The strong arms that kept him up let him go. Instinctively, his arms held his upper body up. He kept coughing wetly even once he had stopped throwing up.
“What kind of idiot goes back into the fucking boat for a—whatever that was.”
He gathered enough strength to turn on his back to look at whoever had, presumably, saved him.
Carlos was delirious. There was a beautiful boy looking down at him. He couldn't quite make out his features because of the sun's fucking glare, but he knew he was gorgeous.
“Look all you want. You'll wake up in a few days thinking it was a dream anyway.”
And with that, the world went black.
Oscar heard the splash. It was a chilly and dark day, and some idiot human decided to go for a swim. Oscar squints as he looks over his shoulder. Is that—No, there’s no way it’s the idiot he saved not that long ago.
He keeps looking. He recognizes the hair. It is the idiot.
He sighs as he gets back in the water from his nice spot on the big rock to save the dumbass.
He manages to grab him and then wrestle him onto the rock.
“Hell—holy shit, you’re a mermaid.”
“And you’re a human.”
“You’re a mermaid!” His eyes go wide as he gapes down at Oscar’s tail. “Can I touch it?”
He doesn’t let Oscar respond before he’s caressing Oscar’s orange-pink duo-chrome tail.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed? It’s cold, and now you’re wet. Humans can’t handle that.”
“We can!” He looks offended. ”You must not know many humans.”
Oscar just gives him a blank look.
“You should get back to shore. I’ll help you a bit.” Oscar goes to grab his waist and get him out of his hair, but the idiot stops him.
“Wait! What’s your name?”
“Oscar. Now let’s go.”
“I’m Carlos!” Carlos smiles at him, and Oscar does not blush. ”Let’s meet up again sometime.”
Carlos finds him while he’s hiding away on a dock that’s on a mostly abandoned side of the beach. He has a knack for finding him; Oscar thinks perhaps Carlos put one of those tracking devices humans put on animals on him.
Carlos is carrying one of those things humans use when they want to ignore others.
“This is a laptop.”
“And it does?”
“Everything.”
Oscar looks at the “laptop” with barely hidden curiosity.
“We’ll watch a movie.”
“Oh, yes. Those are my favorites.” Oscar rolls his eyes.
“It’s The Little Mermaid.” Carlos says as he does something on his “laptop.”
“No thanks, I know like twenty mermaids. Not including my sisters.”
“You’ll like it, I promise.”
Oscar does. Not that he’d tell Carlos, but Carlos can probably tell. The movie is warm and bright and colorful, and it even has a happy ending. Oscar swims out with a better understanding of humans, however weird they are—Carlos probably being one of the weirder ones.
“I can’t imagine leaving the ocean forever,” Oscar says after a minute of silence that felt more like an eternity. ” It’d be nice to see the human world, though.”
“What would you like to see?”
“A town. See the people, how they live.”
“Maybe we could do that.” Carlos is looking down at Oscar with a spark in his eyes.
“I– I should get going before Mark kills me,” Oscar says before launching himself back into the water, leaving Carlos alone on the dock.